1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a storage caddy for roller blade wheel assemblies and more particularly, to a roller blade wheel caddy which has storage facilities for individually storing components of disassembled roller blade wheel assemblies in individual sets.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Objects
Skating is a form of pleasure and recreation which, depending on the skate utilized, can be accomplished in the winter as well as the summer. Typically, ice skate include a shoe fitted with a runner mounting a blade which can be sharpened for digging into the ice. Roller skates have typically included four wheels or rollers, instead of a runner and/or blade, for use on a sidewalk or other surface. For many years, each roller skate included two forward wheels and two rearward wheels. In recent years, a new type of roller skate, sometimes referred to as a "roller blade", was developed and includes a shoe mounted on a runner which, instead of a sharpened blade, mounts a plurality of longitudinally aligned roller wheel assemblies. Racing skates typically each incorporate a blade rotatably mounting five longitudinally aligned roller blade wheel assemblies. Each roller blade wheel assembly includes a roller blade wheel which is rotatably mounted on a blade mounted shaft via a pair of axially spaced apart bearings that are held in axially spaced relation by a tubular spacer that is received on the shaft.
The wheel assemblies must be periodically disassembled, cleaned, and rotated through a predetermined rotational sequence to ensure even wear of the roller wheel and thus maximize operating performance.
It is important to keep the component parts of each wheel assembly together throughout the rotational sequence. Heretobefore, when the plurality of wheel assemblies were removed from the blade and cleaned, the users frequently were unable to keep the component parts of each various wheel assemblies isolated and separated from the component parts of the other wheel assemblies. Instead, parts from different sets of wheel assemblies would be intermingled with the parts from the other wheel assemblies, thus decreasing the optimum performance which is important to "roller bladers", particularly those who are racers. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a storage facility for storing individual disassembled components of a plurality of roller blade wheel assemblies of a roller blade skate.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a portable roller blade wheel caddy for storing the individual components of a roller blade skate in individual compartments for each wheel assembly.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a roller blade caddy including a plurality of storage compartments each including a plurality of individual storing members for individually storing a plurality of disassembled component parts of each wheel assembly in individual clusters.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a roller blade wheel caddy including a plurality of storage compartments equal in number to the number of roller blade assemblies provided on a pair of roller blade skates.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a roller blade wheel caddy which includes a plurality of side-by-side storage compartments for individually storing a plurality of sets of dismantled wheel assemblies and indicia for indicating a predetermined rotational sequence for the individual wheel assemblies.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a roller blade wheel caddy of the type described including a plurality of individual storage compartments, each compartment including an upwardly opening wheel well of a predetermined depth for storing a roller blade wheel, a wheel bearing well, having a reduced depth, for storing the wheel bearings associated with the wheel stored in the wheel well, and an upstanding peg for storing the bearing spacer associated with the wheel bearings stored in the wheel bearing well.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a roller blade wheel caddy of the type described further including an assembly peg on which the various dismantled component parts can be assembled.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art as the description thereof proceeds.